The South vs Social Mobility

Here’s the map from the NYT today on regions and income mobility. The redder the region the lower the mobility:

Doesn’t it seem to you that the South stands out with particular starkness? That the most solidly Republican region offers the least equality of opportunity? Among the cities with the least opportunity: Memphis, Charlotte and Atlanta. The most social mobility? San Francisco and New York, along with Salt Lake City. The chances of rising from the bottom fifth to the top is 2.6 percent in Memphis, Tennessee and 2.2 percent in Nome, Alaska. In Seattle and Boston, the odds are five times that. I don’t know why exactly. But so many maps in America still seem to reflect two essentially different countries.